Bob Chill

@psuhoffman Under the hood there are 10 out of 50 that hit the piedmont/I95 corridor. Some big hits and some lame ones. I expected more than 10 given that it's d8-10 now and not way out there. I wasn't expecting the majority to suddenly jump on the big hit parade but I was also expecting a bit more support than what it shows. An improvement is an improvement though so trend is friend and stuff.

12z EPS is better than 0z but not really close to supporting the op. EPS supports a forum divider or all rain more than a flush hit along the piedmont. Still an improvement run over run and there is a cluster of I95 hits in the mix.

That mindset plagues the human race. lol. At every single step of your life there are people more successful than you, richer than you, luckier that you, etc. Appreciate what you have at all times because in the same vein there are always people less successful, less wealthy, unluckier, etc.

Euro is showing such a basic and easy setup that I can't imagine anything going wrong

True but it's actually really predictable. When it's snowing there's a 100% chance of snow. When it's not there's a 100% chance of fail. It really is that simple.

It's nice to see things holding in time as the leads close. Appears to be our best general setup of the winter so far but that really isn't saying much considering how abysmal it's been. lol. My expectations are slowly shifting towards above normal odds of getting some sort of snow event. Temps are going to frustrate us though. No real deep cold being advertised until late in the first week of Feb. I'd hate to have a forum divider storm. General pattern looks like the typical east of the fall line is dicey at best and once you get further NW it looks pretty good.

It was a pretty good run overall. Extremely active just like the ops are showing but man is the spread huge on sensible wx. Keeping it simple is the best approach. Transition into an active pattern with some semblance of a PNA ridge and let the chips fall. I'm starting to think we won't go 15 days without some sort of winter wx. How much and when is above my pay grade.

GEFS shows some potential for the Feb 1-2 deal to work out but it also really illustrates how close we are on temps and how that could be a problem. Beyond that is typical shotgun in "who the F knows" land. ETA: need to walk back on the who the F knows comment... GEFS actually has a cluster centered around the 5th-7th. Nothing eye popping but it's easy to see

GFS is entertaining AF. No idea if it's within the envelope or way out on a tangent but if things go down similar to the GFS it's going to be really fun around here. At least in the tracking department. The shoveling dept is TBD.

The setup could easily provide a suppressed/sheared final result so I'm not ruling anything out (I'm sure you know this already). How many times have we seen a steady march from suppressed to even too far north from D4 inwards? Too many times to count? At least a couple times a year? If there was a stout -AO and/or -NAO then a suppressed solution comes much easier. We don't have either so small differences in timing result in large differences in the solutions. I'm kinda jaded this year and it feels like the entire atmosphere is working against us but the atmosphere is like the stock market. Incredibly unpredictable the further you go out in time.

Icon was trying to bring it back too...its like on its 3rd resseructuon Anyone who buys into a suppressed solution more than 5 days out has a very short memory. I'm not implying I think odds are high but I would absolutely not be surprised if that wave works out in some fashion around here. This kind of busy flow really kills accuracy beyond D4 on the ops. The fact that they are jumping around should be completely expected and not a sign of models suck

Seeing good tracks with no cold during prime climo is a giant billboard highlighting what our consistent problem has been the last 5-6 weeks. It's just one of those years where we can't buy a real winter airmass. 2-3 day cold shot in a progressive pattern carries low probabilities of frozen precip. I'd like to think the busy flow off the Pac creates an opportunity to combine enough cold with enough precip. Still very possible but ops are highlighting the constant risk we've been dealing with for quite a while now.

OMG! The 18z GFS just nailed the next 12 days and we're screwed! No reason to look at models anymore cuz it's over. Unless you dig into the ensembles for a better picture of possibilities This is one busiest ens runs inside of 10 days we've had all year. Perfectly illustrates that multiple waves and progressive flow is causing havoc on NWP. The 30th through Feb 4th is a very large window with MASSIVE spread in sensible wx outcomes. I predict wild swings on ops every 6 hours for the rest of the week. Ji might need rx meds to get him through the week. Either way he'll require daily group counseling in this thread.

I'm intrigued with how guidance is now squashing the d6-7 wave. Considering how winter has gone start to finish it would be fair to expect the squashed solution to relax as we move through the medium range. If it never happens then it's a sure sign that things are changing. Can't think of a single wave that trended south/squashed/colder from D5 on in. Might be forgetting something but overall all waves in the midwest have ended up being norther/warmer/rainier at game time.

Bring the precip. Cold doesn't matter.

Yea, got squished by the NS but setting up for an amplified storm after. Iterations of all these discrete features are going to cause quite a bit of run over run changes. We need to get one inside of 5 days before we can discuss anything specific. Anything beyond 5 days is prob a phantom. The ideas are plentiful but the most likely to be right idea hasn't shown up yet.

Here's the visual. Muli param 6z control and h5 anom @ hr144. This is an incoming snow event for sure. 0z Icon was amped up. Euro control is more sheared but provides much more wiggle room imo The building PNA ridge on the heels and atl confluence in front is a classic progressive setup for the MA. The slower amped solutions introduce to many potential problems. A quick sheared cold hit is preferred over gunning for a miller A. Not that what I think means a damn thing. I just prefer the easy road at this point.

I'm just looking at it the same way I look at the gfs beyond d7. Gives you a general idea of possibilities without having to slice and dice all the ens panels. EPS agrees that potential activity increases as we move into Feb. Seeing the gfs and euro control advertising similar setups is a step above completely random shotgun chance. We'll see how it goes

@Ji How about the 0z euro contol? 3 events and 1 big one. How about the 6z control? Incoming event just beyond hr144 The way I see it is if we actually go get 3 chances that are mostly driven by a +pna then one is prob going to work out. No guarantees in this dumb game of course. The upcoming chances appear to be better set up than any jacked up chance we've had.

Agree. It's slowly getting interesting again and under 10 days. There like 9 shortwaves and 6 surface lows on gfs. I'll go out on a limb and say it didn't just nail it... but it does show mostly rain so could be right.

I wish it was like 3 days closer. Lol. Ye ole rabbit hole won't get me... yet

Gfs doesn't look much different in the upper levels than the icon @ hr120. Should be a better run. Still an eternity away. Just need the building ridge out west to play nice

@Ji did you look at the 12z euro control? It actually looks just like the gfs with troughs carving, multiple snow events (3), and the best (relatively speaking) entrenched cold towards the end of the run since the first half of Dec. I don't have any strong feelings either way for Feb. I will say that it doesn't look hostile yet. Maybe even a little encouraging...

Half decent +pna driven pattern showing up near the end of Jan into Feb. It's a process and may not yield immediate results but it's no doubt far better than where we've been since mid Dec. A +pna driven pattern in Feb can actually produce without a -ao/nao. CFS/CanSips/euro weeklies all imply a +pna of various magnitudes for the balance of Feb. PSU covered this in great detail this year already but if you look at all the 5"+ storms in Feb with a +ao/nao nearly every one is +pna driven. ETA: considering how this winter has gone start to finish I'm expecting the good looks to deteriorate as we move forward. However, the gfs started showing cold amplification in fantasyland a couple days ago and hasn't wavered since. That + the ens generally agreeing carries some weight. One decent warning level storm and it would erase quite a bit of the nonstop gut punches over the last 6 weeks.

The only real flaw since mid Dec is we can't buy a deep/cold airmass to save our lives. Precip has been plentiful and some of these west tracks could have been decent mixed events. The long range through all of Jan has been too cold. Until that changes our luck is unlikely to change. I'm not punting the rest of winter because that's silly. Winter didn't even begin in 2015 until mid Feb and ended up being a great winter. It all started with that arctic front. Anything can happen and nobody knows how Feb will go. Personally, I'm not getting invested anymore until a cold pattern is either in place or knocking on the door.